Black Holes

The Key to Understanding the Universe

By: Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw

Narrated by: Jeff Forshaw

Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

By the star physicist and author of multiple #1 Sunday Times bestsellers, a major and definitive narrative work on black holes and how they can help us understand the universe.

At the heart of our galaxy lies a monster so deadly it can bend space, throwing vast jets of radiation millions of light years out into the cosmos. Its kind were the very first inhabitants of the universe, the black holes.

Today, across the universe, at the heart of every galaxy, and dotted throughout, mature black holes are creating chaos. And in a quiet part of the universe, the Swift satellite has picked up evidence of a gruesome death caused by one of these dark powers. High energy X-ray flares shooting out from deep within the Draco constellation are thought to be the dying cries of a white dwarf star being ripped apart by the intense tides of a supermassive black hole–heating it to millions of degrees as it is shredded at the event horizon.

They have the power to wipe out any of the universe’s other inhabitants, but no one has ever seen a black hole itself die. But 1.8 billion light years away, the LIGO instruments have recently detected something that could be the closest a black hole gets to death. Gravitational waves given off as two enormous black holes merge together. And now scientists think that these gravitational waves could be evidence of two black holes connecting to form a wormhole–a link through space and time. It seems outlandish, but today’s physicists are daring to think the unthinkable–that black holes could connect us to another universe.

At their very heart, black holes are also where Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity is stretched in almost unimaginable ways, revealing black holes as the key to our understanding of the fundamentals of our universe and perhaps all other universes.

Join Professors Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw in exploring our universe’s most mysterious inhabitants, how they are formed, why they are essential components of every galaxy, including our own, and what secrets they still hold, waiting to be discovered.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Incredible book

The author did a great job explaining complicated subject matter to a general audience. It does not dumb things down, which makes the book unique

Not a good audiobook

while the book itself is very good, describing interesting phenomena of black holes in easy to understand way, the descriptions rely too much to assumption that one can look the accompanying pictures. There is zero effort to make the book really an audiobook. Buy paper or pdf or similar, don't try to listen.

Slow Down

Good story and I love the topic, but the performer read too quickly. The recording sounds choppy.

missing attachment pdf

Wondering where the attached pdf file is. 🤔 they said it was attached but I can't find it.

Entanglement -> quantum computers

Really good bridge of theoretical physics that is very hard to observe yet leads to invention of real things that obey the theory. Can’t observe, much less comprehend, Entanglement theory leading to quantum computers that harness that unobservable (today) theory.

Loved it

I love anything Brian Cox does and this book was no exception. I own the physical copy as well. The only thing that would improve the audio version is Brian Cox narrating it.

Interesting Subject with Problematic Preaentation.

This book does nor lend itself well to an audio book! Much of it is spent describing the diagrams in the PDF which is fine but awkward. This is especially so when refering to an illustration from previous chapters. Also, "boxes" are mentioned that appear to contain equations. Having someone read the equations is not an accurate w
ay of transmitting them to the reader. I didn't have a pencil to write them down and my hands were busy looking at the PDF, A printed copy would be more convenient.